Adwaita Mallabarman
Adwaita Mallabarman, was a Bengali writer and journalist based in India. Today, he is best known for the novel, Titas [Ekti Nadir Naam (novel)|Titas Ekti Nadir Naam], which was published posthumously in 1956, following his death in 1951. He was briefly associated with Anandabazar Patrika, Yugantar and Desh.
Early life and education
Mallabarman was born in a Malo family in Gokarnoghat village beside the Titash River, near Brahmanbaria town in, Comilla District of present-day Bangladesh, then in undivided Bengal in British India. He was the second of four children and lost his parents when he was a child. His two brothers died shortly after, and his sister died before he went to Calcutta at the age of 20. As a boy and a teenager, until he left for college, he lived in the village with his uncle. He was the first child from the Malo community of the village and nearby area to finish school. Members of the Malo community collected subscriptions to support his school expenses. He attended the town's elementary school and Annada High School. He matriculated from the school in 1933 and went on to Comilla Victoria College. In part because of financial difficulty, he left college in 1934 and went to Calcutta to work as a literary editor.Career
Throughout his teen years he wrote prodigiously, mostly poetry, and published in student magazines. Those early writings were highly acclaimed, so much so that peers who aspired to be writers sought his opinion on their work before sending it to a publisher.Mallabarman's first job in Calcutta was as assistant editor of a literary and news magazine, Navashakti. After three years with the magazine, he worked as an editorial assistant for a literary monthly, Mohammadi, in which he also published a number of his poems and parts of what was evidently the first draft of Titash Ekti Nadir Naam ; he continued to work for Mohammadi until its Muslim publisher closed the monthly and emigrated from India. During this period he also worked for the newspaper Azad. In 1945, he joined the literary weekly Desh and the daily Ananda Bazar Patrika. From 1945 through 1950 a number of his poems, stories, essays, and translations were published in Desh and other magazines.